Illus: The minister rose to address his congregation. "There is a certain man among us today who is flirting with another man's wife. Unless he puts $100.00 in the collection plate, his name will be read from the pulpit."
When the collection plate came in, there were 19 one hundred dollar bills and a note that said, "I will pay the other five on payday." (Quoted and adapted from the SermonFodder email list)
Everyone has a conscience, but there are some who claim that some are born without a conscience.
• Robert D. Hare has a book out called, “Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us”.
• Martha Stout has a 256 page book called, “THE SOCIOPATH NEXT DOOR: THE RUTHLESS VERSUS THE REST OF US.”
In her book, she says that four percent of us have no conscience. It makes you wonder how she knows that. She must have some kind of instrument that she can look into a person and see if they have a conscience. But the fact is, at birth every one of us has been created with a conscience.
THIS IS ONE OF THE PROBLEMS WITH CLONING! When God makes a man or a woman, He places within them a CONSCIENCE. One of the big controversies is; if scientists are able to clone another human being, who will put a conscience in that clone?
When God creates a human, He places within that person a conscience. A person can sin against their conscience over and over again and their conscience will become hardened.
Illus: Have you noticed that when you commit a sin, your conscience speaks to you and you feel guilty for the sin you committed? Have you noticed that if you keep committing that sin, it will become easier and easier to do, because your conscience will become hardened and no longer bother you?
Illus: Most of us can remember the time that when a lady pulled up to a gas station, an attendant would come out and pump her gas. And if a gas attendant was not available, often a man would see her preparing to pump gas into her car and he would walk over and do it for her. But today, we see young women, middle age women, and elderly women pull up to get some gas nobody helps. We have come to accept this as normal.
The more we see something, the more we get used to it. And the same is true with sin; the more we see it the more we accept it.
Illus: This is the strategy of the homosexuals. They want to keep homosexuality before the American people so they will get used to it and begin to accept it.
God has given each and every one of us a conscience.
Remember in John 8, when the adulterous woman was brought to Jesus? She was thrust at the feet of Jesus and the men that brought her said that they caught her in the very act of adultery. They reminded the Lord that the law taught that she should be stoned to death.
The Lord was quick to reply, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”
John 8:9 says, “And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.”
God has given every one of us a conscience; it is a voice within that tells us things are wrong. But when we violate that conscience over and over again, we soon become shameless!
Did you know that amputees often have PHANTOM PAINS in the limb that was removed? They think they can still feel it.
Illus: Somewhere, locked in their brains:
• A memory lingers of the nonexistent hand or leg
• Invisible toes curl
• Imaginary hands grasp things
• A "leg" feels so sturdy a patient may try to stand on it when they do not have a leg to stand on
For a few, the experience includes pain. Doctors watch helplessly as the part of the body screaming for attention does not exist.
Illus: Dr. Paul Brand and Philip Yancey, in Leadership magazine said, “One such patient was my medical school administrator, Mr. Barwick, who had a serious and painful circulation problem in his leg but refused to allow the recommended amputation.”
As the pain grew worse, Barwick grew bitter. “I hate it! I hate It!” he would mutter about the leg. At last he relented and told the doctor, “I can’t stand it anymore. I’m through with that leg. Take it off.” Surgery was scheduled immediately.
Before the operation, however, Barwick asked the doctor, "What do you do with legs after they’re removed?"
"We may take a biopsy or explore them a bit, but afterwards we incinerate them," the doctor replied.
Barwick proceeded with a bizarre request: "I would like you to preserve my leg in a pickling jar. I will install it on my mantle shelf. Then, as I sit in my armchair, I will taunt that leg, ’Hah! You can’t hurt me anymore!’"
Ultimately, he got his wish. But the despised leg had the last laugh. Barwick suffered phantom limb pain of the worst degree. The wound healed, but he could feel the torturous pressure of the swelling as the muscles cramped, and he had no prospect of relief.
He had hated the leg with such intensity that the pain had unaccountably lodged permanently in his brain. (Dr. Paul Brand and Philip Yancey, Leadership, Vol. 5, no. 3. from preachingtoday.com)
Phantom limb pain provides wonderful insight into the phenomenon of false guilt. Christians can be obsessed by the memory of some sin committed years ago.
• They live in fear that someone will discover their past
• They work overtime trying to prove to God they’re truly repentant
Unless they experience the truth in 1 John 3:20, that states, “For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things," they will never experienced anything but GUILT in this life.
HOW CAN WE RID OURSELVES OF THIS GUILT?
I. CONSIDER MAN’S SOLUTION
Mankind seems to think there are a number of things we can do. The result of sin is guilt. What do we do with it? Some of us drag it around day after day, until the burden gets too heavy to bear. Every sin adds more weight until we don't have strength to go on. Ever feel that way? Perhaps you do now. What can we do with guilt?
A. BLAME OTHERS
Illus: A woman was working one night in a Honeybaked Ham store. The store was equipped with security cameras, and she was watching the small, black-and-white monitors when she saw a woman come in the store, walk down the handicapped ramp, and go between two shelves. To the clerk's amazement, this woman grabbed a ham off the shelf and stuffed it up her dress. With the ham wedged between her thighs, the woman waddled toward the door.
The clerk was stunned and wondered what she should do. Should she yell out? Follow the woman?
Just then, the ham dropped out from between the woman's legs. It hit the metal handicapped ramp with a loud bang, and then rolled and clanged to the bottom.
The thief didn't miss a beat. She quickly turned her head and yelled out, "Who threw that ham at me? Who threw that ham at me?" Then she ran out of the store.
This is the dominating psychology of today.
• "I am not responsible for my own sins. It is my parents' fault, my upbringing.”
• “It's in my genes, a result of my environment."
Here is how the world today works…
• If a man cuts his finger off while slicing salami at work, he blames the restaurant.
• If you smoke three packs a day for 40 years and die of lung cancer, your family blames the tobacco company.
• If your neighbor crashes into a tree while driving home drunk, he blames the bartender.
• If your grandchildren are brats without manners, you blame television.
• If your friend is shot by a deranged madman, you blame the gun manufacturer.
• And if a crazed person breaks into the cockpit and tries to kill the pilot at 35,000 feet, and the passengers kill him instead, the mother of the deceased blames the airline.
Illus: When it comes to this blame game, one man said, “I must have lived too long to understand the world as it is anymore. So, if I die while I am parked in front of this computer, I want you to blame Bill Gates...okay?”
Some even go so far as to contend that sin is a disease. Let's get real. Sin is a transgression of God's law, caused when we are drawn away by our own evil desires. Unless done in ignorance, sin is a deliberate choice on our part to do what we want and can't be blamed on others.
B. LOWER THE STANDARD
People say, "Don't be so hard on yourself. Others are doing it - look around. Why feel guilty for acting like the rest of the world?”
This loss of shame arises from a loss of guilt. The loss of guilty feelings arises from a rejection of a condition of guilt. Have you noticed how no one is ever guilty of anything these days? No one accepts responsibility for actions done. Instead of FEELING SHAME we now FIX BLAME. It’s always somebody else’s fault! The teacher or coach or referee or government or liberals or a right wing conspiracy is to blame.
I long to hear someone stand up and publicly declare: “Yes, I did it. I’m guilty and I accept the consequences of my wrong actions.”
• I don’t think we heard that in Pete Rose’s recent interview
• We did not hear it in Scott Peterson’s case when he was convicted of killing his wife and baby
• We did not hear that from O.J. Simpson when he had a mountain of evidence that would have sent any man here to death row if they had such evidence against him
Illus: Baltimore newspaper writer, H. L. Mencken, once said: “Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that someone may be looking.”
How many of us honestly believe that God is looking? How many of us engage our conscience by pausing before acting to ask – What will God think of this? After all, “Religion is only a crutch for the mentally weak. We've come a long way from Bible days so don't be bound by old fogy rules. Even God wants you to have a good time."
This kind of thinking seems to work for awhile, but conscience is hard to run from. Knowing to do right and not doing it brings more guilt.
C. RUN AWAY
We can always move to where nobody knows us. Start fresh. No history, no past. No sin, no guilt. But we cannot hide from ourselves. Guilt sticks to us. It is in us.
Guilt is not something that can be covered up by a new address, a new house, car, blouse or suit. Sin makes us guilty inside, and changing external circumstances will not remove the guilt of sin.
D. PUNISH YOURSELF
Sweat under the weight of chronic regret. What a terrible way to live. This is suicidal. Many today just will not accept God's forgiveness.
We need to CONSIDER MAN’S SOLUTION and -
II. CONSIDER GOD’S SOLUTION
Not one solution that man has to offer can cure us from GUILT within. We have people today that are running back and forth to the psychologist.
• He is ASKING THE WRONG QUESTIONS
• They are GIVING THE WRONG ANSWERS
They are prescribed drugs and walk around like “Zombies.” Then, when they have to come back to reality, they feel GUILTY for letting themselves to become addicted to drugs.
ONLY GOD HAS THE SOLUTION TO SIN AND GUILT. Only the BLOOD OF THE LAMB can wash away SIN AND GUILT! It is only when we COVER OUR SINS WITH THE BLOOD OF JESUS THAT WE BECOME FREE FROM SIN AND GUILT.
• He bore our sins, our guilt and shame on the cross
• When He died, we should have died
• Our sins became His sins
Look at 1 John 1:9, we read, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
No sin can be greater than God's forgiveness. Even hideous sins are forgiven at the cross. Look at what Isaiah says, “Come now, let us reason together. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red as crimson, they shall be as wool.”
Conclusion:
God has the cure to REAL GUILT! When the woman was brought to Jesus, the Lord asked her where her accusers were. She looked around and did not see anyone. The Lord told her to GO AND SIN NO MORE.
We need to realize that some of the guilt that we have does not come from SIN, it comes from people who have put it on us.
• If you have worked hard all week long and you take a Saturday afternoon and stretch out for a nap, and your spouse berates you for "wasting" the day, the guilt can keep you from sleep.
• Perhaps you worked 80 hours one week, and the boss rewards you an afternoon off. As you leave, your coworkers make snide remarks and guilt gnaws at you that they're working while you're lying by the pool.
There are many cases when we have fully lived up to our morals, but others try to control us by guilt. This kind of guilt is something we should not allow.
But when SIN has come into our life, GUILT also enters. If we do not do something about it, sin becomes guilt that leads to shamelessness!
Conclusion:
Illus: There is an old legend about three men and their sacks. Each man had two sacks, one tied in front of his neck and the other tied on his back. When the first man was asked what was in his sacks, he said, "In the sack on my back are all the good things friends and family have done. That way they're hidden from view. In the front sack are all the bad things that have happened to me. Every now and then I stop, open the front sack, take the things out, examine them, and think about them." Because he concentrated on all the bad stuff, he really didn't make much progress in life.
The second man was asked about his sacks. He replied, "In the front sack are all the good things I've done. I like to see them, so quite often I take them out to show them off to people. The sack in the back? I keep all my mistakes in there and carry them all the time. Sure they're heavy. They slow me down, but you know, for some reason I can't put them down."
When the third man was asked about his sacks, he answered, "The sack in front is great. There I keep all the positive thoughts I have about people, all the blessings I've experienced, all the great things other people have done for me. The weight isn't a problem. The sack is like sails of a ship. It keeps me going forward.” "The sack on my back is empty. There's nothing in it. I cut a big hole in its bottom. In there I put all the bad things that I can think about myself or hear about others. They go in one end and out the other, so I'm not carrying around any extra weight at all."
What are you carrying in your sacks? (H. Norman Wright, The Perfect Catch (Bethany House, 2000)
We need to -
I. CONSIDER MAN’S SOLUTION
II. CONSIDER GOD’S SOLUTION
